When Should We Give Feedback?

"When should I give feedback?" It's a common question from new managers, and the response from experienced managers is almost universally (and predictably) the same: "Constantly." Most don't have a hard time figuring out that "more feedback is better than less or none at all." After all, most of us have learned to develop software emphasizing techniques that maximize feedback, and we generally find it superior to older, more waterfall-ish ways. But a second question looms: "How often? And what should it look like?" At times, a manager can feel like a cheerleader on the sidelines, and it doesn't always feel like you're doing anything when you're waving your managerial pom-poms.

Different circumstances call for different kinds of feedback, and different personalities (both yours and your directs') will mean you need to tune the means and message differently for best results—but the short answer is that "Managers should always be looking for ways to provide a constant, concrete, and consistent stream of feedback to their directs."

Formal reviews#

The annual (or quarterly) performance review meeting is an obvious place in which to provide guidance on and review an employee's work and results. Generally, the atmosphere in this meeting is more formal and more "final," meaning that the review at this point is to ascertain promotions, raises, bonuses, and so on. As such, it often serves as a "markpoint" in the employee's performance history, meaning that the next formal review will only consider the employee's performance from this point forward.

However, formal reviews lack several elements that contribute to effective feedback:

• Timeliness. By being so far chronologically removed from any event that can serve as an example to provide the concrete feedback, it is hard for an employee to feel the nuance that would let them incorporate the feedback most effectively. Being told to "give presentations with the same kind of energy and enthusiasm" is easier to understand when that advice given within a week of the talk, as opposed to three, six, or even twelve months later.

• Concrete. When we reach so far into the past to provide the feedback, it is often difficult, if not outright impossible, to remember the details of that event, period. "That meeting with the Product team went very well because of your attention to detail" makes much more sense when it is delivered within a week rather than a year later—after such a long time, it can be almost impossible to remember exactly what level of detail was the level of detail we used for that meeting. When delivered in three- or twelve-month "bursts," too, it becomes very easy to offer up generalized feedback, rather than concrete examples that the employee can learn from and repeat.

We'll talk more about formal performance reviews in the "Performance Reviews" chapter.

One-on-ones#

One of the easiest and most consistent ways to provide the "3C's" of feedback is to hold a consistent one-on-one meeting with your direct. Assuming your 1:1s with your directs are on a regular and frequent cadence (my preference is weekly), this gives you opportunities to provide feedback without the stigma of a "special meeting" for the purpose. Not all 1:1s will cover performance—at least, they shouldn't, unless something is seriously awry—but it's a convenient and expected place to do so.

When you do choose to use a 1:1 to talk about performance, make sure it's close enough to the event to be fresh in everybody's minds, but also make sure that it's enough time to cover the subject thoroughly. Praise should never be cut short, and should always be accompanied by deeper discussion about the "why" of the praise—why, exactly, was their praiseworthy moment worthy of praise, and how can they repeat it in the future? Constructive criticism will generally require more time than praise, particularly if the employee wants to ask questions. (Also, it's generally better to praise the things the employee does well, rather than dwell on the things they don't. See the section "How to give feedback" below for more details.)

Standups#

Most development teams have a regularly-recurring "standup" meeting each day for reporting status, plans, and any blockers that appear. This meeting is a perfect time for quick, focused feedback, particularly since the standup format doesn't allow for lengthy diatribes or long arguments. Because standups are also generally team-only, if the team is a psychologically safe environment, others can volunteer ideas on how to overcome obstacles or what they've done to improve, in the case of coaching, or take the opportunity to add their own praise to yours (which sometimes will make you aware of things you didn't know before that moment). Just make sure to keep the feedback concise and concrete, and defer any longer conversation to either a 1:1 or a team-wide meeting (if the team as a whole wants to discuss it).

Team huddles#

Many development teams, in addition to their standups and managerial 1:1s, will hold a weekly "team huddle," in which the team agrees to discuss news and agenda items that are more strategic or lengthy than what can be covered in a single standup. In many cases, these team huddles are adjacent to, or part of, sprint planning meetings or sprint completion ceremonies such as retrospectives. This, too, is an excellent place for team-wide feedback, particularly if it is accompanied by some data around team-wide metrics being tracked.

Ad-hoc#

Ever noticed how, in the middle of a game, a coach will call out coaching tips to a player or call a quick time-out to provide some immediate guidance? Offering up feedback "in the moment" is one of the most powerful tools a manager can use, so long as it's not distracting from the purpose of the moment. Standing up in the middle of your employee's presentation to point out that their agenda is poorly organized is a little too close to the moment, but doing so immediately after the meeting is appropriate and timely.

Public vs private: The old adage says "Praise publicly, criticize privately," but the truth is much more nuanced than that. Some employees are uncomfortable being made the center of attention, regardless of the reason—such that praising them in a large, all-hands company meeting will feel more like a punishment than a reward. Similarly, there will be times when a public criticism is necessary in order to make it clear that certain behavior is not to be tolerated any longer; when doing this, however, generalize it to a group rather than a single individual. Case in point, while I was working for a company that was experiencing some severe downtime issues, one senior engineer made the self-appointed decision to delete an "unnecessary" XML file from a production server that took the entire website down for several hours. The CTO used this incident as an example of what would no longer be acceptable among the development teams, and made it very clear that this kind of behavior was a "firing offense." The individual was never named, and the teams began to institute a number of reforms to their DevOps pipeline that would prevent this sort of thing from being possible.

As a common rule of thumb, I find that for an employee I've just recently come to manage, my ad-hoc feedback is exclusively praise/positive feedback, and I leave the constructive/corrective feedback for more "scripted" meetings, at least until such time as I get the sense that they are feeling psychologically safe reporting to me. Ad-hoc feedback often takes employees by surprise, and a carelessly "negative" feedback comment can often sting unexpectedly. When in doubt, save constructive/corrective feedback for scheduled meetings, and use ad-hoc moments to reinforce or point out examples of what was previously discussed.